The key to foraging shellfish is clean water. Don't pick off piers or anywhere where sewerage is pumped into the sea. Rocky headlands are good. Mussels and oysters are good food, but they accumulate contaminants.

avoid coasts with an industrial legacy if there is a big heavey metal or radiological load (i wont eat anything from devon to scotland and north sea fish are a rarity),there are local issues as well which one should assess on their facts

that's the coast of cornwall out as well then, there are old arsenic mines upriver from here

Last edited by toggle on Sat Mar 27, 10 7:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

avoid coasts with an industrial legacy if there is a big heavey metal or radiological load (i wont eat anything from devon to scotland and north sea fish are a rarity),there are local issues as well which one should assess on their facts

that's the coast of cornwall out as well then?

Why Devon dpack and both the north and south coasts? IIRC the pollution from Sellafield seems to travel mostly north so not much should reach the North Devon coast.

Hello! Post are a bit old but I've not had much luck purging my mussels picked a bit off the sussex coast. Porridge and salt water is recommended but others don't seem to bother. Mine look like they've still got their poo sac after 24hrs purging.

I've had limpets, whelks and flounder and mackeral off my coast all good eating. I'm new and normally on the homebrewing topics. Bye.

Hopefully I'll be out foraging tomorrow and I've been trying to find somewhere that lists any recent problems with shellfish and I can't find any sites. I notice that some beds have been closed in Pembrokeshire recently but there doesn't seem to be one place that lists the latest news.

I've found this page on the CEFAS site that lists loads of locations and their previous history, it's quite useful even if it is a rather weighty 166 pages. (List of reports here)

We were just up the coast from Sandymouth, we'll try there in the coming weeks.

I only picked a few as they weren't that big or numerous, tasted fine to me. Plenty of laver about which is nice to nibble.

Musty, the saying is normally you only eat shellfish when there is a R in the month. There seems to be many reasons, such as: avoiding eating things when they are likely to be reproducing, growing quickly and thus processing large volumes of water and more at risk of picking things up, more likely to eat poisonous algae etc, etc.

Word of caution, check with your local Port Health Authority for water quality regarding ecoli and noro virus. Late summer can produce toxic algae that cannot be removed by soaking in salt water. good reference sight www.thecornishmusselshack

along the bristol channel has industrial history,im dubious about anything in the irish sea but as the recorded radiological loads have decreased for technicium in winkle shells maybe there is less new load being added .

the irish box load has mostly been from sellafield/windscale but there have been inputs from several other facilities.it does go mostly north/west around ireland and into the northern seas.most places are radiologically/chemically safe to eat a few shellfish but as a staple it might be a mistake in some places.eating the shells is always wrong

there are other places to avoid such as dounreay but most are well known or behind wire.

as to chemical challenge from mine outflow local "hotspots"are common but usually only give dangeroos metal levels locally.in lagoons/estuaries /marshes etc they are less diluted by the sea.